My labrador, Dosh, waits. I throw. Released, she grabs it mid-air, showing off, then returns. I throw again; she’d retrieve forever.
If I could, just once, experience the joyous muscle-music I witness when Dosh clamps her jaws around a soggy tennis ball, I could face anything in this challenging world.
Sarah Flick wrote this story.
Once pristine washbasin becomes farmhouse kitchen clean, witnessing many things being rinsed; plates, potty mouths, placenta off bawling newborns.
Decades later, repurposed porcelain sits upon bricks by a desolate gate, gathering cattle slaking shared thirsts.
The running man in dirty stripes stops, dispersing the herd.
Dunks his head, drinking deeply.
Steven Holding lives in the United Kingdom. His story TURNING A TRICK appears in the collection BLOODLUST from Black Hare Press. You can follow his work at stevenholding.co.uk.
At the end of an archipelago shaped like the devil’s tail, I sat in a bar counting toes on cats. They brought in today’s catch wrapped in yesterday’s news and shooed away the flies. Here land ended and the sea stretched beyond my vision. There was no further to go.
Colby Wrasse is a man who once thought he possibly understood the World, but now is certain he does not.
The epiphany comes at midnight.
Everything matters less than you think.
There is more nothing than distant starlight.
Dark Matter is God’s backswing, and here you wait
fumbling to light your one candle, trying to see
the outline of your family in the dark,
passing the lighter, survivors.
Ed McManis’ work has appeared in more than 70 publications including Coolest American Stories 2025. His most recent chapbooks are “The Zombie Family Takes a Selfie” Bottlecap Press, and “Trash Truck 7:38 A.M. (And Other Love Poems”). He, along with his wife, Linda, have published esteemed author Joanne Greenberg’s (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden) latest novel, Jubilee Year. Little known trivia fact: he holds the outdoor free-throw record at Camp Santa Maria: 67 in a row.
“Don’t fight it; dive through the wave,” Pop says. “Let the tide take you past the breakers.”
The ocean builds, bubbles, rises like green champagne. We lay back and float with arms splayed out—two messiahs, under cloudy skies, wasting hours in the wave’s trough and crest.
DG Bracey is a teacher and a freelance writer from the Carolina coast. He’s picked up degrees from the University of South Carolina, Coastal Carolina University, and the University of North Carolina – Wilmington. He’s published short stories in various journals and been a feature writer for several newspapers.
They would die but not surrender. Warriors of royal ambition, they were unable to resist the bloodstained crown won at the martyr-making end of a bayonet.
The stomping of botas rattled the desert mission. The Tennessean grinned, and Colonel Crockett and his boys raised their muskets, preparing for their coronation.
David Albano is a proud native son of Baron Rouge, Louisiana who now lives in Texas. He is an avid reader who also enjoys writing, LSU Sports, and being involved in his church community. David has previously been published in Frontier Tales and Dark Moments.
The bus hissed to a stop, doors yawning open. One passenger remained, clutching a torn ticket. The driver met her eyes in the mirror. “Last stop.” Outside was only darkness and silence. The doors closed. The road itself vanished. Still, the bus moved forward toward nowhere.
Mary Wanjiru is a freelance writer from Kenya who is passionate about microfiction, human interest stories, and exploring the eerie in everyday moments. Her work has appeared on various platforms, and she enjoys crafting stories that linger in readers’ minds.
I don’t remember the first hands that held me as I entered this world, vulnerable and mewling. I won’t remember the last hands that cling to me as I leave this life, helpless and silent. This is half my story. In the end, I hope they aren’t the same hands.
Katie lives on a farm in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Lately, she and her husband have been embracing the hint of early autumn air and exploring the creative side of writing. In addition to 50-Word Stories, her microfiction was recently featured in Short Beasts Flash Fiction and is forthcoming on 101 Words.
the loneliest satellite
fifteen billion miles from home
one eight-track to keep me entertained
and just a simple calculator brain
but I voyage on
sending signals and messages back
not knowing how to return
or where this trip is taking me
but I know—
I carry something of great importance
Mitchell Biggs is a poet based out of the Skagit Valley in Washington State. Growing up near the Salish Sea, he found his creative muses in the natural world, in the DIY music scene and in endless stacks of thrifted paperbacks. His work has been featured in Writer’s Hour Magazine and Dissident Voice.
All of her friends are engaged to men with insurance and stock portfolios. You’re next! they demand.
Alone, in places that are clean and beautiful, she outlines the novel she’d like to write. She looks at her chipped nails and the drafts in her notes. She just wants a dishwasher.
Alexa is intense, takes things personally, has never gotten over anything, and is editor of The Miami Native.